There is no way for me to adequately convey the inestimable impact of his words on my adult life. He has been with me every day for as long as I can remember, like a pulse. Somehow, I always imagined our paths would cross, and I would be able to thank him for making me brave when I needed to be, for gently teaching me to love from afar the language and the well-trodden lanes of Castledawson and Bellaghy in rural Derry, for “crediting marvels,” in the unlikeliest small things, and, mostly, for inspiring me to set words down on a page, to light up this screen with them, so I might at last be able, “to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”

Over the years, during the bad times, when friends and relatives have lost loved ones, my condolences to them have been wrapped up in Seamus Heaney’s pitch-perfect poetry. Where do I turn today? For today, only Heaney himself would be capable of producing the right words to assuage Ireland’s sorrow over his passing. I cannot imagine the landscape of my lovely, tragic homeland without him. I don’t want to. So I turn again to something he wrote in Station Island, to a poem he dedicated to his sons, Michael and Christopher, and I imagine them grown and grieving with his wife, Marie, and daughter Catherine Ann, and “taking the strain of the long tailed pull of grief.”

A Kite for Michael and Christopher

All through that Sunday afternoon
A kite flew above Sunday,
a tightened drumhead, an armful of blow chaff.

I’d seen it grey and slippy in the making,
I’d tapped it when it dried out white and stiff,
I’d tied the bows of the newspaper
along its six-foot tail.

But now it was far up like a small black lark
and now it dragged as if the bellied string
were a wet rope hauled upon
to life a shoal.

My friend says that the human soul
is about the weight of a snipe
yet the soul at anchor there,
the string that sags and ascends,
weigh like a furrow assumed into the heavens.

Before the kite plunges down into the wood
and this line goes useless
take in your two hands, boys, and feel
the strumming, rooted, long-tailed pull of grief.
You were born fit for it.
Stand here in front of me
and take the strain.

Yvonne, I found out when I was at work looking at the Guardian at lunchtime and then my brother texted me with the news as well. I sat and wept at my desk. I also thought about you as I knew how much his work meant to you as well. A sad, sad day.

(ps i just followed you on twitter so could you follow me back as I wanted to dm you)

When my phone alarm went off this morning, a friend had posted it on Twitter. I wept before I got up.
On the way to work, I heard him read ‘Fosterling” on NPR and when I looked over at my daughter, she had tears in her eyes because he sounds so like all her relatives back home.

I wish I wasn’t so far away today. As they would say, heart-scalded by the news.

When I got the phone call I went numb and Yvonne I just sais the word ……Yvonne will be distraught,, as we all are. He is being buried in Bellaghy,,I am so sad I knew him when he cycled in our village always that same smiling face, he was just a boy then..xx

Oh, ma, I rang you a couple of times this morning after I found out, but you weren’t there. Distraught, indeed. I am glad to hear he is being buried in Bellagy – back to “his first place.”
I am so sad, as I know you all are as well.
xo

I thought of you immediately when I heard this news on NPR this morning, Yvonne. As an American not well read in poetry, you were the first one to introduce me to Seamus Heaney. I have since heard others refer to his work, and I thought of you each of those times as well. Thank you for being such a devoted curator of his beautiful work. I can feel the depth of your sadness coming through your words on the screen.

Oh, thank you so much, Martha. It is a day of sorrow, indeed. When all the tributes stop flowing, and all the books of condolences have been signed, I will take the time to write a considered post. I am so grateful to my late college English professor, Brian Baird, for leading me to Heaney and back to myself.
y

I think like Mr Baird you too have led many of us back to Irish literature long after we closed the text books for the last time. You have done a fair bit of digging with your own pen. Well done Yvonne. You’re a credit x

Surreal to think of the man who was a boy at Anahorish school, riding his bicycle against the wind, past my mother’s house when she was a girl – today touching hearts in Chicago a d cities all over the world. I am so sad.

I was so sad when I heard, so sad. His poetry, particularly the line “hope for a sea change” in “The Cure at Troy” has inspired me for countless years. I thought of you, Yvonne, when I read the news and can only wonder at a wonderful world where people who don’t know one another can share poetry.

Me too, Elizabeth. I don’t have the words to explain the impact of his life and his death. I really don’t, but there is definitely great comfort in knowing that this man from Bellaghy reached into the hearts of people from all corners of the globe, and found something in common, something that made us all better than we thought we could be.

I have been reading his words online…and looking for the perfect book of his poetry at used book stores to find an old edition that has been lovingly read and cared for, for rather than a new book, I always love the history of one passed on from another to my hands. When I read the news in the morning, I shed a tear for You, my dear friend, who loved Seumus so well. I had even named a sweet pitbull at our shelter after him and he was adopted right away. I’m so sorry dear Yvonne, that you are filled with sorrow for the death of someone who you so personally drawn into.

“Opened Ground” Selected Poems 1966-1996 is a wonderful start. Should be easy to find. Yeah – I love books that have been well-read & marked-up, and of course add my own marks as well.
Yes. I am so sad about his passing. His poetry is associated with so many simple, everyday bits of my life – Clearances (which he wrote for his mother) just leaves me undone because I can picture my mother and my grandmother in that same part of Derry, doing the very same things.
Thank you, B.
xox

Meta

Immigration matters

From there to here . . .

Yvonne hails from Antrim, Northern Ireland, and has lived in the desert southwest of the United States for almost thirty years. Married, with a daughter who is navigating her path through the "teen tunnel," and a haughty cat, Atticus, she has spent the better part of the last three decades in the classroom as a student, teacher, and administrator. Her mid-life crisis came as a sneaky Stage II invasive breast cancer diagnosis which subsequently sent her to the blogosphere where she found a virtual home away from home . . .